Law in American Healthcare System
There exist many definitions of Law. However, the most commonly met notion is defined as a set of rules and policies, which mandate and permit certain relationships among people, communities, and organizations, intended to ensure the impartial treatment of parties, and at the same time provide punishments for those who fail to follow these rules (Wiki, 2006). Typically, legal systems are formed and developed through history and tradition. And although the rules, norms, and regulations included in the law are very strict and clear, still law is a fickle and changeable doctrine. 
Exact sciences include mathematics (together with all mathematics-related sciences), natural sciences, and applied sciences. An exact science is defined as “systematized knowledge” (Wiki, 2006) or as “a science, whose laws are capable of accurate quantitative expression” (Dictionary, 2006). Therefore, law and legal studies are not, and would never become an exact science. In law all rules and principles are formulated by words, notions, or concepts but not variables, constants, or axioms. Moreover, legal systems and laws are different among countries (and even states in the U.S.), while all exact sciences without exception are absolutely the same around the world (except for the Pi confusion in Indiana [Lopez-Ortiz, 2000] and several similar cases). And although there are several allegedly omnipresent constant and unchangeable axioms in law regarding murder, theft, etc, theoretically there may exist legislatures in which these can be tolerated under specific circumstances. This fact proves law in general is erratic. 
The role of law in healthcare raises very important issues such abortion, euthanasia, animal research, cloning, genetic manipulation, eugenics, patient autonomy, confidentiality, and others. Healthcare laws intend to ensure that health services providers render services according to specific norms. Although they are very hard to determine and even define, these norms refer to the actual performance and rendering or physicians, nurses, etc, and not the end results. Thus, healthcare laws refer to assessing the commitments, risks, merits, and concerns of activities or healthcare providers, and taking corrective action if any of the above does not correspond to the standards. 
Healthcare law is tightly linked with medical ethics and risk management, which is why the main principles of healthcare law and medical ethics are the same. These six important principles concern honesty, dignity, justice, autonomy, non-maleficence, and beneficence. The actual medical services, however, includes many different techniques and practices aimed at improving medical ethics. Typically, healthcare laws encourage patients to write care planning or care directives. Service providers, on the other hand, are under close evaluation on such topics as confidentiality, resuscitation, futility, AIDS (HIV), patient consent, errors, physician-patient relationship, personal beliefs, and many more. 
The combination of healthcare laws, medical ethics, and risk management techniques creates a safe and risk-free ground for performing high-quality medical services. It is then the responsibility of healthcare providers to abide to the rules and norms set by these three. Following these norms and rules would obviously improve the general quality of healthcare services in the United States. Thus, healthcare laws are necessary for the overall well being of the population. 
Bibliography
1.	Wikipedia contributors (2006). Law. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 7, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law
2.	Wikipedia contributors (2005). Exact science. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 7, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exact_science
3.	Exact Science. (2006). Dictionary.com. Retrieved January 7, 2006 from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=exact%20science
4.	Lopez-Ortiz, Alex. (2000). Indiana Bill Sets Value of Pi to 3. Faculty of Computer Science. University of New Brunswick. Retrieved January 7, 2006 from http://faqs.jmas.co.jp/FAQs/sci-math-faq/indianabill